Had a great time the other night seeing Marian and Scott playing a mini-concert at a local house venue here in K-W, as she heads back to Alaska on her 50-state (and several province) tour. Excuse the poor iPhone pic I didn’t think to take a camera with me Continue Reading »

Coming locally (Centre In The Square in Kitchener) this November, I believe I have to see this show …

Okay, so we’re talking about a Broadway musical that has puppets, a “not for children” rating, a song titled “The Internet Is For Porn” and another titled “It Sucks To Be Me” making fun of a cross-gendered Gary Coleman.
No matter what else it’s going to skewer so many things I think people are going to laugh for sure (although I think you have to be a little into alternative or edgy shows to like this sort of thing, it’s not your parent’s Broadway).

I don’t have a captcha currently in use on this blog (other security measures are installed instead), but I’m sure you’ve seen them, the “please type in these characters as you see them” box that tries to prevent robots and other phishing/spam engines from pretending to be people online. Captchas can really help prevent improper online contest entries, document downloads, database access, blog comments … well, you get the idea.
Well, one of the larger players in that industry sub-segment, reCAPTCHA, has just been purchased by Google (aka the “non-evil empire”).
One of the problems with Captcha systems is that hackers have learnt how to handle the simpler ones. That’s the reason you now see more complex ones in a lot of places (animation, gray scale, and other techniques being used). I never thought of the flip side of that though, and found it very interesting to read in the Google Blog that they are using these “learned lessons” of captcha validation as a way to improve OCR (Optical Character Recognition). And why would they be doing this?Image from WikipediaContinue Reading »

I’ve known about 3D printing for some time, in my past professional life it was a way to create prototype parts that you designed in CAD to detailed spec, without having the huge cost of building molds or dies, and without the issues and inaccuracies of handmade models. But this technology can be used for art.All amages from Bathsheba SculptureContinue Reading »

I’ve gone to many, many different venues over the years to see many different musicians, from a summer traveling the eastern coast of Canada & USA for quite a few rock concerts (it was a good summer – what can I say, I was younger then!), through blues to jazz to classical to folk to dance and many others.
I had the opportunity this past week to go to our local live theater venue Centre In The Square, to see what was labeled as “Songwriter’s Circle”, one of the performances from their “On Stage’ series for this year. The description I was given was “only a few hundred people, sitting on stage at a number of small tables close and personal to the performers”. Hmm. Well, that describes a lot of different places I’ve heard music before, from local festival playhouses all the way to bars grungy enough you have to have out-of-focus vision already to want to visit. I have to admit I was a bit hesitant about how much I’d enjoy it.
(pic of David Myles from his web site, Peter Elkas from CBC)Continue Reading »

And now, for something completely different today, music videos that have stuck with me as visual examples of great talent.
Let’s start with a 1937 music video of Benny Goodman and his orchestra playing “Sing Sing Sing”, featuring what at least some people say is the first recorded drum solo, by the incomparable Gene Krupa.

Followed by a more recent Tommy Emmanuel doing his famous “Guitar Boogie” – something to make any self-professed guitar guru out there weep with envy.

Speaking of more recent guitar gurus, another famous YouTube video is this young man by the handle of “JerryC” and his home-made video of playing lead in a rock version of Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major – Canon Rock. Talk about unplanned social media aka viral video – after 2 years, 45 million views and still climbing.

And last but not least, Jake Shimabukuro does an amazing version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on the ukulele. Don’t laugh – it’s by far better than anyone reading this could do on the guitar!

This last video is compliments of Midnight Ukulele Disco – visit them for a change from “top 40″ music!

Harry Bishop

Born naked and young on the east coast of Canada, with time I was able to overcome those barriers & learn how to wear matching socks.

After many years & frequent flier miles managing consulting teams, I am now an Ontario Public Service employee, which keeps me interested and out of trouble, and supports my family, dogs, & small watch collection.